Apparatus and method for generating title products

ABSTRACT

The present invention provides an apparatus and method for generating title products. A device accepts a title product search request for a title product for a property. The device initiates a search of databases that contain information about the property such as data or evidence of title. A rule engine compares the retrieved information with business rules such as title insurance underwriting criteria. The comparison provides results for generating a title report, insurance contract or other title insurance products.

CLAIM OF PRIORITY UNDER 35 U.S.C. §119

The present Application for Patent claims priority to ProvisionalApplication No. 60/829,826 entitled “APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR GENERATINGTITLE PRODUCTS,” filed Oct. 17, 2006, and assigned to the assigneehereof and hereby expressly incorporated by reference herein.

BACKGROUND

1. Field

The present invention relates to title products. More particularly, thepresent invention relates to an apparatus and method for generatingtitle products related to insurance underwriting.

2. Related Art

The title insurance underwriting process has traditionally been a laborintensive process. Large financial institutions that underwrite titleinsurance employ large numbers of title examiners, abstractors andsearchers. These individuals research title histories and laws todetermine the possibility of a defect in title to a parcel of land. Theresearch frequently requires searching databases for evidence of titleand applying business rules to the evidence to generate title productsfor customers.

Title insurance protects land purchasers and loan institutions fromdefects in title. A land purchaser may purchase title insurance toprotect from an unknown claim of title. A home purchaser may be requiredto obtain title insurance prior to obtaining a mortgage on a property.Mortgagees and note purchasers may purchase title insurance to protecttheir collateral interest in a mortgage. Lien holders may also purchasetitle insurance to protect their collateral interest in the landowner'sdebt.

In the underwriting process, the databases searched for evidence oftitle may be fairly extensive. For example, county databases may besearched for the chain of title for the parcel of land or property.Public record databases may be searched for evidence of mortgages orliens on the parcel of land or property. Court databases may be searchedfor evidence of judgment liens. Proprietary databases may also besearched for histories of title insurance. Any database containinginformation for evaluating the risk associated with underwriting titleinsurance for the parcel of land may be searched.

To make sound title underwriting decisions, a number of financialinstitutions have developed business rules to be applied as part of theunderwriting process. The business rules allow employees at financialinstitutions to apply objective criteria to selecting and creating titleproducts for a parcel of land or property. An analyst may compareevidence of title with business rules to determine underwriting risk,suitable title insurance products, and to determine if any otherinformation about the land parcel should be acquired prior to making anunderwriting decision. The business rules applied during theunderwriting process may often vary according to the location of theparcel of land or property and the jurisdiction governing landownership, taxation, recording and zoning.

The large amount of human effort required to generate a title productoften results in significant delays or errors in the underwritingprocess. The title underwriter may have to search multiple databases fortitle evidence, compare the evidence with voluminous business rules,create a title report and generate a title insurance product. This mayresult in significant delays or errors in the acquisition of securedfinancing or in closing a real property transaction. The lengthy processalso affects the sale of mortgages in secondary markets, decreasesmarket liquidity and increases transaction time and cost.

Those skilled in the art will recognize that there is a need for fastermore accurate systems and methods for generating title insuranceproducts. The present invention addresses this need as well as others.

SUMMARY

The present invention may include a system and method for generatingtitle products for use by financial institutions. A device (e.g.,computer or workstation) may receive a search request for a titleproduct. The search request may have the address, legal description, orother indicia of location of a parcel of land or property. A searchengine may issue search queries to one or more databases to retrieveinformation about the parcel land or property. The retrieved informationmay then be processed and sent to a rule engine. The rule engine mayapply underwriting or other business practice rules to the retrievedinformation. If the rule engine identifies missing information, the ruleengine may send supplemental queries to system operators. The systemoperators may then key in the required information. The rule engine mayreturn the results of applying the business practice rules. The devicemay generate a title report, refined title data, insurance contract orother title product.

In one embodiment, a method for generating a title product comprisesreceiving a title product request for a particular property, the titleproduct request includes a type of title product, searching for titleinformation related to the particular property, applying businesspractice rules to the title information to produce business practiceresults, and generating a title product using the business practiceresults.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The features, objects, and advantages of the present invention willbecome more apparent from the detailed description set forth below whentaken in conjunction with the drawings, wherein:

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of an apparatus for generating title productsaccording to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of the automated title product (ATP) engine ofFIG. 1 according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram of the rule engine of FIG. 1 according to anembodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram of the title search engine of FIG. 1 accordingto an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a flow diagram of a method of generating title productsaccording to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 6 is a flow diagram of a method of generating title productsaccording to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIGS. 7A-7G shows an exemplary title product with the title productresults according to an embodiment of the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Systems and methods that implement the embodiments of the variousfeatures of the present invention will now be described with referenceto the drawings. The drawings and the associated descriptions areprovided to illustrate embodiments of the present invention and not tolimit the scope of the present invention. Reference in the specificationto “one embodiment” or “an embodiment” is intended to indicate that aparticular feature, structure, or characteristic described in connectionwith the embodiment is included in at least an embodiment of the presentinvention. The appearances of the phrase “in one embodiment” or “anembodiment” in various places in the specification are not necessarilyall referring to the same embodiment. Throughout the drawings, referencenumbers are re-used to indicate correspondence between referencedelements. In addition, the first digit of each reference numberindicates the figure in which the element first appears.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of an apparatus 100 for generating titleproducts (e.g., title reports) according to an embodiment of the presentinvention. The components or elements of apparatus 100 may beimplemented using hardware, software, or a combination of hardware andsoftware.

A device (e.g., computer, handheld, server, etc.) 102 may accept orreceive a title product request for a title product (block 602). A usermay select which product they want for a particular order. The device102 may generate or initiate a title product request 104 for a titlesearch engine 106. The title product request 104 may include the legaldescription of a parcel of land or property or other indicia of locationsuch as an address, tax identifier, tract number or parcel number.

The title product request 104 may also include other information relatedto the parcel of land or property such as buyer and seller information.The buyer and seller information may include a buyer's full name or aseller's full name (e.g., first, middle, and last). The title productrequest 104 may specify the type of title product desired. For example,the type of title product may be a title report for a loan officer of abank or an insurance contract for a prospective home buyer. Otherexamples of types of title products include ALTA Extended Owners, ALTAStandard Loan Policy, Eagle Loan Policy, and Legal, Vesting InformationReport.

The title search engine 106 receives the title product request from thedevice 102. The title search engine 106 may query or search, using thetitle product request, one or more databases 108 for historical dataabout the parcel of land or property (block 604). The historical datamay include title information such as a chain of title, a recordeddocument (e.g., deed, judgment, easement, etc.) and prior policiesunderwritten by a title company (e.g., by First American Title). Thedatabases 108 may also have information regarding the status of titlesuch as the tax status, legal status, vesting status, voluntary lienstatus, and judgment lien status. The databases 108 may also includeencumbrances and other information related to title or potential defectsin title. The title search engine 106 may query the databases 108 forany information relevant to make a title underwriting decision.

The databases 108 may be proprietary databases belonging to a financialinstitution, an insurance underwriter or a commercial informationvendor. The databases 108 may also be vast proprietary databases 108having multiple data-marts. The databases 108 may also be publicdatabases such as a county recorder's database. The databases 108 may beelectronic or may be libraries with paper records that require manualdata entry for each query.

The title search engine 106 may interact with an automatic title product(ATP) engine 110. Title data 112 (e.g., the historical data and theencumbrance data) from the title search engine 106 may be sent to theATP engine 110. The ATP engine 110 may parse and format the title data112 to produce formatted title data 114 (block 606). The formatted titledata 114 may be sent to a rule engine 116. The rule engine 116 may havea rule database 118 of business practice rules. The business practicerules may be any if—then structured rule. One example of a businesspractice rule is “if the current tax year has either installment with astatus not equal to ‘PAID’ for tax type other than ‘supplemental’ thenpopulate the T/3 phrase in the exception section.” Another example of abusiness practice rule is “if both of the installments for the annualtaxes exist and are paid, then include ATRN/T3 in the requirementsection.” Another example of a business practice rule is “if transactiontype is sale and liability amount is greater than $750,000 or sale valueis higher than $1,000,000, then raise alert and flag for secondaryreview.” The rule engine 116 may apply the business practice rules tothe formatted title data 114 to produce business practice results 120(block 608). The business practice results 120 are data, outcomes orresults of the business practice rules.

The business practice results 120 may be used by the ATP engine 110 togenerate title product results 124 (block 610). The title productresults 124 may include the date, vesting information, a legaldescription of the property, exceptions, requirements, status, andmessage. FIGS. 7A-7G shows an exemplary title product 126 with the titleproduct results 124.

In one embodiment, the ATP engine 110 may query or search an exceptionsdatabase 122 to find one or more exceptions related to the parcel ofland or property (block 612). Exceptions can be defined as items thatare not covered for the property in question. Exceptions are exclusionsto limit coverage on a title policy. Most title policies are limited asto what they cover and exceptions define specifically what is notcovered for the property in question. Some examples of exceptionsinclude judgments, easements, taxes, special assessments, mechanic'sliens, mineral and/or water rights, and covenants, conditions, andrestrictions (CC&R's). Exceptions are stored in the exception database122. The title product results 124 may be sent to the title searchengine 106 and the device 102. The ATP engine 110 and/or the titlesearch engine 106 may use the title product results 124 and/or the oneor more exceptions to generate title products 126 (block 614). The titleproduct results 124 are the unique characteristics of the title products126. The title products 126 also include boiler plate and genericinformation describing the conditions and details surrounding thecoverage. The title product results 124 include specific informationmaking the policy or title products 126 unique to the recipients (e.g.,buyer, seller, and/or lender) and to the property in question.

The engines 106, 110 and 116 may be hosted on independent platforms andmay share data via mark-up (e.g., XML) language or other networkinglanguage or protocol. The databases 118 and 122 may also be hosted onindependent platforms and share data via XML or other networkinglanguage or protocol. Alternatively, the engines 106, 110 and 116 andthe databases 118 and 122 may be hosted on a single platform or multipleplatforms.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of the ATP engine 110 of FIG. 1 according toan embodiment of the present invention. The ATP engine 110 maycommunicate with the title search engine 106 and the rule engine 116.The ATP engine 110 may also communicate with one or more workstations202. The ATP engine 110 may receive information from the title searchengine 106 and identify data that requires further attention. The datarequiring further attention may be legal data, vesting data, voluntarylien data, for example, and the work requests may be sent to analystsfor further processing. The work requests may be sent using XML to theone or more workstations 202. The workstations 202 may include a legalworkstation 202-2, a vesting workstation 202-4, a voluntary lienworkstation 202-6 or any other type of workstation (not shown). Analystsat the workstations 202 may process the work requests by makingdecisions or entering supplemental data.

Each of the workstations 202 may store work requests in a queue until ananalyst is available. The use of multiple specialized workstations 202with skilled analysts at each of the workstations 202 speeds up thetitle product generation process. However, the use of a singleworkstation 202 or non-specialized workstations and analysts is alsocontemplated.

A scheduler (not shown) may be used to ensure the timely production ofdata products. The scheduler may, for example, allocate thirty minutesfor processing of work requests or any other task to be completed. Afterexpiration of a predetermined time period, the scheduler may cue the ATPengine 110 to begin executing the next task.

After the search is complete and the analysts have processed the workrequests by, for example, entering any supplemental data via theworkstations 202, the ATP engine 110 may package the data retrieved bythe title search engine 106 or entered at one of the workstations 202for further processing by the rule engine 116. The rule engine 116 mayapply business practice rules and may supply the results to the ATPengine 110. The ATP engine 110 may query the exception database 122 forexception data related to the parcel of land or property. The exceptiondata may include, for example, new data that affects the parcel of landor property since the date the plat map data was retrieved from anearlier search. The ATP engine 110 may also include components forprocessing data related to a vesting, a legal description, a siteaddress, a tax ID number, standard exception information, and anyrequirements associated with the parcel of land or property.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram of the rule engine 116 of FIG. 1 according toan embodiment of the present invention. The rule engine 116 maycommunicate with the ATP engine 110 and with the rule database 118. Therule engine 116 may receive data from the ATP engine 110 and apply thebusiness rules stored in the rule database 118 to generate businesspractice results 120. The rule database 118 rules may be updated using arule workstation 302. A system operator with special access privilegesmay update the rule database 118 because of changes in underwritingpractice, changes to title products, changes in laws, changes inunderwriting risk profiles or any other reason that warrants a businessrule change.

The rule engine 116 may employ a standard business process management(BPM) engine. The SBM engine may be implemented in software andinstalled with Windows 2000 and Microsoft Sequel Server 2000 providingan integrated rule engine 116 and a rule database 118. The installationprovides a convenient processing platform for the rule engine 116. Thescope of the invention, however, is not limited to a rule engine 116with a BPM engine; other rule engine 116 configurations are alsocontemplated. The rule database 118 and the rule engine 116 may beintegrated or federated. The rule engine 116 may have decision points todetermine whether, for instance, task A has been processed or task B hasbeen processed.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram of the title search engine 106 of FIG. 1according to an embodiment of the present invention. The title searchengine 106 may communicate with the device 102. The title search engine106 may accept title product requests 104 as well as traditional searchrequests 402. The title search engine 106 may query multiple databaseshaving information relevant to the title product request 104 or thesearch request 402. The queried databases may include a countyrecorder's database 108-2, a mortgage database 108-4, and a proprietarydatabase 108-6 containing multiple data-marts having information aboutthe parcel of land or property. The title search engine 106 may formatthe results of the search request 402 providing them to the device 102for display or printout.

The results are formatted to organize the data found in the title searchin a more comprehensible format. For example, the results may beprovided as an Adobe PDF (Portable Document Format) file. The resultsinclude any errors found while searching and describe the documentsprovided and the documents ignored. The documents provided are relevantdocuments pertaining to the current status of the property and thedocuments ignored are outdated documents that no longer apply becausethe relevant documents superseded them. The results may include screenshots of data found during the search from databases located at variouspublic agencies.

The title search engine 106 may also send the search results to the ATPengine 110 for further processing and generation of a title product. TheATP engine 110 may return results to the title search engine 106. Thetitle search engine 106 may process the results for display or printoutby one or more devices 102.

FIG. 5 is a flow diagram of a method 500 of generating title productsaccording to an embodiment of the present invention. An order for atitle product may be entered into the device 102 (block 502). The orderfor the title product may contain the legal description or other indiciaof location for a parcel of land or property. The device 102 may searchfor data relating to the title in one or more land information databases(block 504). The title data retrieved from the search may be sent to theATP engine 110 (block 506). The ATP engine 110 may format the title datafor processing by the rule engine 116 (block 508). The rule engine 116may control the SBM engine. The rule engine 116 may apply businesspractice rules and title insurance underwriting rules (block 510). TheATP engine 110 may determine whether any non-automated tasks are needed(block 512). If so, the tasks are sent to an operator to perform thenon-automated tasks (block 514). The business practice results arebundled or combined into a title product (block 516).

The previous description of the disclosed examples is provided to enableany person of ordinary skill in the art to make or use the disclosedmethods and apparatus. Various modifications to these examples will bereadily apparent to those skilled in the art, and the principles definedherein may be applied to other examples without departing from thespirit or scope of the disclosed method and apparatus. The describedembodiments are to be considered in all respects only as illustrativeand not restrictive and the scope of the present invention is,therefore, indicated by the appended claims rather than by the foregoingdescription. All changes which come within the meaning and range ofequivalency of the claims are to be embraced within their scope.

1. A method for generating a title product comprising: receiving a titleproduct request for a particular property, the title product requestincludes a type of title product; searching for title informationrelated to the particular property; applying business practice rules tothe title information to produce business practice results; andgenerating a title product using the business practice results.
 2. Themethod of claim 1 wherein the type of title product is selected from agroup consisting of a title report, a title policy, a loan policy, alegal information report, a vesting information report, and combinationsthereof.
 3. The method of claim 1 wherein the title information isselected from a group consisting of a chain of title, a recordeddocument, a prior policy underwritten by a title company, andcombinations thereof.
 4. The method of claim 1 wherein the titleinformation is selected from a group consisting of tax status, legalstatus, vesting status, voluntary lien status, judgment lien status, andcombinations thereof.
 5. The method of claim 1 further comprisingsearching for encumbrance information related to the particularproperty.
 6. The method of claim 1 further comprising parsing andformatting the title information to produce formatted title information.7. The method of claim 1 further comprising searching for an exceptionrelated to the particular property.
 8. The method of claim 7 wherein thetitle product is generated using the exception related to the particularproperty.
 9. A method for generating a title product comprising:receiving a title product request for a particular property; searchingfor title data including historical data and encumbrance data related tothe particular property; formatting the title data to produce formattedtitle data; applying business practice rules to the formatted title datato produce business practice results; generating title product resultsusing the business practice results, the title product results includingvesting information, a legal description of the particular property, anexception, a requirement, and a status; and generating a title productusing the title product results.
 10. An apparatus for generating a titleproduct comprising: a search engine for receiving a title productrequest for a particular property, the title product request includes atype of title product, and for searching for title information relatedto the particular property; a rule engine for applying business practicerules to the title information to produce business practice results; anda title product engine for generating a title product using the businesspractice results.
 11. The apparatus of claim 10 wherein the type oftitle product is selected from a group consisting of a title report, atitle policy, a loan policy, a legal information report, a vestinginformation report, and combinations thereof.
 12. The apparatus of claim10 wherein the title information is selected from a group consisting ofa chain of title, a recorded document, a prior policy underwritten by atitle company, and combinations thereof.
 13. The apparatus of claim 10wherein the title information is selected from a group consisting of taxstatus, legal status, vesting status, voluntary lien status, judgmentlien status, and combinations thereof.
 14. The apparatus of claim 10wherein the search engine searches for encumbrance information relatedto the particular property.
 15. The apparatus of claim 10 wherein thetitle product engine parses and formats the title information to produceformatted title information.
 16. The apparatus of claim 10 wherein thetitle product engine searches for an exception related to the particularproperty.
 17. The apparatus of claim 16 wherein the exception isselected from a group consisting of a judgment, an easement, a tax, aspecial assessment, a mechanic's lien, a mineral and/or water right,covenants, conditions, and restrictions, and combinations thereof. 18.The apparatus of claim 10 wherein the title product is generated usingthe exception related to the particular property.
 19. The apparatus ofclaim 10 wherein the rule engine employs a business process managementengine.
 20. The apparatus of claim 10 wherein the rule engine tracks alist of tasks and determines whether the list of tasks has beenperformed.